U.S. Military Secretary Dan Driscoll is in Abu Dhabi to fulfill with Russian officers, two U.S. officers and two diplomatic sources who weren’t licensed to talk publicly instructed CBS Information.
“Secretary Driscoll met with members of the Russian delegation [Monday night] for a number of hours in Abu Dhabi. He’s scheduled to fulfill with them once more all through the day [Tuesday] to debate the peace course of and quickly transfer the peace negotiations ahead,” a U.S. official instructed CBS Information.
It isn’t clear who else is within the U.S. delegation in Abu Dhabi.
The conferences come amid an intensifying push by President Trump to safe a ceasefire within the virtually four-year-long Russia-Ukraine struggle, with U.S. officers holding discussions with envoys from each international locations.
Over the weekend, Driscoll, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and diplomats from Ukraine and European allies attended talks in Geneva, Switzerland. Driscoll’s assembly with Russian officers additionally follows a go to to Ukraine’s capital final week.
U.S. and Ukrainian officers have additionally mentioned a possible go to to the U.S. this week by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, CBS Information reported on Sunday. There are at the moment no exhausting plans for a go to by the Ukrainian chief.
It stays unclear how shut Russia and Ukraine are to a deal.
Final week, CBS Information obtained a draft of 1 Trump administration-backed proposal to finish the struggle. The proposed plan included a number of provisions that Zelenskyy has rejected prior to now, corresponding to a requirement that Ukraine surrender its total Donetsk area — together with elements that are not occupied by Russia — and an finish to the nation’s push to affix NATO.
There may be additionally an accompanying doc associated to safety ensures, in accordance with U.S. and Ukrainian officers. Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., instructed “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday the doc specifies that the U.S. intends to supply “safety assurances” that she stated are alongside the traces of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits members to return to the protection of a NATO state that’s attacked.
On Saturday, a bunch of NATO members and different U.S. allies launched a joint assertion calling the proposed peace plan “a foundation which would require extra work.”
The White Home stated in an announcement Sunday evening that U.S. and Ukrainian officers had “drafted an up to date and refined peace framework” following the discussions in Geneva. Rubio described one session in Geneva as “very significant” however added that “there’s nonetheless some work left to do, and that is what our groups are going to be doing proper now.”
Mr. Trump has pressed Zelenskyy to succeed in a deal by Thanksgiving, although Rubio described that deadline as versatile on Sunday.
A U.S. official instructed CBS Information that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to imagine that he’ll take the Donetsk area of Ukraine somehow – both via a negotiated settlement or on the battlefield. The Trump administration’s negotiations in Geneva started from the premise that Putin is appropriate.
Whereas that very same U.S. official declined to offer a U.S. evaluation of whether or not Ukraine is shedding the struggle within the East, the U.S. official stated that the trajectory of the preventing factors to Russia taking Donetsk. The official indicated that the Russian progress within the japanese frontline metropolis of Pokrovsk, which is a logistics hub for Ukraine, was not a optimistic signal for Kyiv’s defensive prospects. Russian media typically refers to Pokrovsk because the “gateway” to Ukraine’s industrial Donbas area.
